


Clay

by prayed



Category: Sanrio - Fandom, チリンの鈴 | Chirin no Suzu | Ringing Bell (1978)
Genre: Animals, Dysfunctional Relationships, Gen, Species Dysphoria
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-26
Updated: 2020-07-26
Packaged: 2021-03-06 07:53:53
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25529989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prayed/pseuds/prayed
Summary: So impressed was he by him that the lamb vowed to become a wolf himself one day. But was that really such a good idea?
Kudos: 11





	Clay

**Author's Note:**

> I don’t know why obsessive, dysfunctional relationships involving murder are my thing. There’s something beautiful about being so deep in the darkness with someone else who knows and accepts you at your worst, and all that.
> 
> Anyway, this is supposed to be ambiguously familial, but interpret it any way you want.
> 
> Also, I like to wax poetically about god but am not religious so don’t take that too seriously.

Wolves are beautiful.

Chirin can’t help but think so, even of his mother’s killer - something so insane and meaningless as that. 

What is wrong with him?

It’s a traitorous thought, to feel envy for some majestic creature which could kill you given the chance, and which you feel something for, because he doesn’t.

What had sheep done to deserve this fate? And him in particular?

To be so weak and so ugly as they are. 

He curses the world for having made him born a lamb. For lacking the muscles and teeth and claws of a wolf, for how was he ever expected to survive in such a cruel world without them?

He can see that it’s just as Woe, the Wolf King had said: this world is unjust, a world made for the powerful to eat the rest.

He has noticed that the world bows down to such strength; every animal is irresistibly drawn to a wolf’s fearsomeness, which is so rare and wondrous as to stir awe. Even in himself.

Predators need curiosity and intelligence in order to hunt, to survive; killing can bring out a noble nature. On the other hand, Chirin’s flock have proven to be weak of mind, will, and body and inspire little from any imagination.

So Chirin must overcome his own nature. If Chirin can become a wolf, if he can kill, he can grasp that nobility for himself.

One of the lessons he’s learned from the Wolf King is that it’s lonely at the top. Animals that know what’s good for them stay far away from Chirin and Woe.

So they’re always alone, the both of them.

Why is the wolf without a pack anyway?   
What is that scar on his eye?   
Are they connected?

He has many questions for the wolf. Chirin thinks maybe that’s why he hasn’t killed him yet, given the opportunity.

“Something happened to my mother, like you,” Woe explains. The silence, so piercing, is like a bark of laughter from god himself at their situation. The wolf doesn’t say anything for the longest time. 

Even if the Wolf King were with him always, Chirin’s aloneness as an animal is completely singular.

The ram-wolf is used to getting looks of concern from other animals as he passes them in the mountains. Birds, squirrels, mice, all gaze at him and squeeze their sleeping children to their chests, disturbed.

They must wonder to themselves what a lamb is doing here of all places, looking like that. They worry and pray their children don’t turn out like him: neither sheep nor wolf, something in between that god never wanted and which belongs nowhere in the world. 

But that doesn’t matter. He would fight against god himself, against the whole world, for there’s nothing to fear anymore and nothing to live for except rage.

As Chirin grows, fighting makes him more battered and scarred by the day; uglier, more thin and muscular than any ram should be. The looks of concern end and turn into looks of outright fear.

Good.

Finally, he gets the respect he deserves. He is now a Sheep King, a killer and a predator, and all other animals are fair game for his bloodlust. He’s never felt more alive.

The wolf always looks at him indifferently, never concerned nor afraid. Just as likely to lick Chirin’s face as he is to snarl and bite at him.

Of course, he wouldn’t be afraid. He had carried Chirin in his mouth like a puppy and bathed him and taught him to eat raw meat. All that even though the first time they met, the sheep had essentially given him a death threat.

It hurts to know that his real father never got the opportunity to teach him anything and that his mother would never get to see him growing his horns in, while her killer has. In the back of his mind, he always knows that it’s all the wolf’s fault.

Though she wouldn’t have wanted to see him like this. 

In the night, Chirin is unrecognizable. They spar, like play-fighting on the wolf’s end, but from Chirin, the aggression is real. He snaps his fangs at Woe’s neck and charges at him like a demon. 

The moonlight is a wolf’s element, and Woe looks radiant in it, which despairs Chirin into making him bleed. He knows he will never look the same way, wolf or not.

Woe only remarks that Chirin is growing stronger by the day, and doesn’t mention the monstrous abomination he’s becoming, the one all the other animals think he is.

Does Woe know? When Chirin kills, sometimes he imagines that the one he sinks his fangs into— that the one he’s goring with his growing horns, sharp and aching— is the wolf.

When he thinks of ripping Woe‘s dying breath out with his power, he feels gleeful and then empty. There’s something uncomfortable and ill-fitting about the idea now, and he doesn’t know when that happened, but he does know it’s all he has.

When it’s snowing and his wool just isn’t enough and his bony body turns cold, Woe curls around him without hesitation. Unsmiling and wordless, his warmth prolongs the sheep’s life, making Chirin feel weak and hating himself for it.

He hates himself for the ache in his chest, the gentle warmth he feels inside when he should only feel fury.

It’s times like those that he wonders why the wolf would willingly continue keeping a child he knows will eventually kill him. 

He thinks if he asks, he won’t get any response, almost as if the wolf himself wouldn’t quite know the answer. There could be no good reason for it, it’s so irrational.

On the other hand, anyone could ask why Chirin allows himself to be so deeply affected by someone he plans to kill. What would he say to that?

In the end, his mind is a snake eating itself; he can’t stand to think about the answers, even to himself.

The wolf howls longingly at the moon, and by instinct, by training, or by whatever it is, Chirin howls along as best as he can, like Woe taught him to.


End file.
